Star Crossed
by McMuffinDragon
Summary: Samantha and Fred are warped back to Elizabethan times. SamanthaxFred
1. Chapter 1

_**For XiaolinPrincess**_

**_I'm being told to write again, so I will. SamanthaxFred is what XiaolinPrincess wanted me to write, so this was all I could really think of that I liked. I don't own these characters, but the story line is mine in all its idiocy. NOTE: Little to none of this is historically accurate, so don't expect to learn. : D_**

_**Star Crossed**_

"_**For never was a story of more woe**_

_**Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."**_

_**-William Shakespeare**_

"Ew! You're lying, that never happened." Fred stared at Samantha in a mix of disgust and disbelief. "They never did that."

"Yes, they did. Actors weren't the respected people that they are now. They were scum in the eyes of everyone else; women were treated very well and viewed as almost holy. So, there were no women in productions; all roles were played by men."

"Wait a minute," Joe said, flipping through the pages of his English book. Their class was reading _Romeo and Juliet_ and since nobody spoke in old English anymore, the boys didn't have a clue as to what was being said.

Sam refused to help them since he now attended a boarding school for those with "gifted intelligence" in upstate New York. Joe and Fred were stranded. Well, not really, Samantha had warped back to wish Anna a happy thirteenth birthday, as over the years they had become close friends. When Samantha had walked past Joe's room and heard Fred ask what a princox was, she couldn't help but stop and answer. After that question, there came another, and another, and still more, until she decided to stay.

"Wait, wait, wait." Joe flipped forward a couple more pages to where a picture interrupted the written text. The illustration in question was of two people kissing, a girl and a boy, Romeo and Juliet. "If all the roles were filled by guys, then that would mean-"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Fred shouted covering his ears.

"Yes Joe, boys would have to kiss other-"

"La la la la la la la la la I can't hear you la la la la la la" Samantha and Joe sat quietly until Fred's episode was done.

"As I was saying,"

"No, I'm no gonna listen to you lie any more." Fred said melodramatically, "Gimme the Book."

"What? No!"

"I wanna show you you're lying." He reached for the Book in her hand. He caught only the back corner but held tight. This became a harsh tug of war. Samantha's foot pushed against Fred's chest trying to pry him off the Book, but he wouldn't let go. Joe frantically tried to be a peacemaker by taken the Book from the two of them, but Fred elbowed him hard in the face so he backed down and anxiously watched.

"Let go!" Samantha muttered through gritted teeth, pulling the Book back to her.

"Never!" Fred grunted. He tugged hard as he could which was hard enough to fall backwards off Joe's bed. Samantha, unwilling to let the Book go, was pulled forward. They both disappeared from Joe's sight. There was a flash and a puff of green mist.

"Guys?" Joe asked the empty room.

x+

"Ow," Fred sat up rubbing his head. "Where are we?" he looked at Samantha, who was already standing and looking over the edge of the balcony they were on.

"The Globe Theatre, I guess between 1600 and 1613." Fred got up and walked over to the edge. The whole place was about 100 feet across. 70 of those feet made a wide open area for people to stand in. The rest was a stage. Samantha and Fred stood in one of the highest balconies, but they could clearly hear what was going on below.

"Cut!" Shouted a man with a mustache and receding hairline. "I oft think I might have made more success had I trained wild animals to read my play rather than you poor excuse for a cast."

"Excuse me, sir." One of the young men on stage cut in.

"What is so important, Adrian, that you must interrupt your director?"

"Well, sir, there are two people up in the balcony." The director turned around and saw Samantha and Fred.

"What is this? What meanest thou by intruding upon a closed rehearsal?"

"What?" Fred whispered to Samantha.

"He wants to know what we're doing here."

"Make haste to me!" the director shouted. Samantha dragged Fred down the stairs to the stage. "What meanest thou upon thine intrusion, explain thineselves!"

"I'm very sorry." Samantha began her explanation that they had gotten lost looking for their cousin's house and meant no offence. The story was the stupidest lie ever thought up, ever. But he bought it.

"Very well." He said wringing his hands. "No harm done." He turned to address the actors who stood in assorted impatient positions, "From the top!" he shouted.

"Of the scene?" asked one boy with a mask over his face.

"Of the show!" the director snapped back. Numerous groans were uttered as some slinked back stage muttering.

"No!" one of the performers with black hair wearing a large billowy red and black dress spoke up.

"Pardon me?" the director cocked an eyebrow.

"We've done this twenty times!" Ripping the wig off his head, the performer was indeed a boy. A boy in a dress. "I'm not doing this again. We have worked since before the sun rose. My will has reached its end, sir." He threw the wig down, picked up the end of the dress and began walking off. "Find another Juliet!" He shouted over his shoulder.

"You weren't kidding…" Fred whispered to Samantha. She had a sly, self-contented look on her face.

"Well, if he's out, then I'm out too." The actor with the mask threw it to the ground and followed in the other's wake.

"Wait!" the director called, but it was too late. "Oh fie! Fie! Where shaltst I find two more younglings to fill head roles?"

"We'll do it." Samantha raised her hand.

"Are you crazy?" Fred turned to her aghast.

"Oh, come on, it'll be fun. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity."

"Is that even possible with The Book?" Samantha shrugged in response. The director continued his lamenting episode.

"Shame has brought its presence upon the theatre and the production. Doom hangs in the air like the mists of the high lakes!"

"We'll do it." Samantha said again, a little louder and more forcefully.

"What sayst thou?"

"I sayst that you have a new Romeo and Juliet." She gestured to Fred, who gave a nervous wave.

"I shall accept the fair haired one." He nodded to Fred, "But you, fair lady," he took Samantha's hand, "Art far too frail and elegant to join the thespian ranks."

"Oh, that is shame." She turned away and put on a bit of acting. "For where shalt you find another Juliet at such late hour?" The director looked up at the actors still on the stage; they shrugged at him. He looked at Fred, the same reaction. "For years hence the people shall tell tale of the director whose production was end for he would not accept the help of a lady when it was offered to his hand." She turned back halfway and saw the director almost at the point of breaking. "I suppose," she turned to leave.

"Wait!" the director shouted. Samantha stopped and looked over her shoulder. "In the darkest hour, the beggars may not become those who choose."

"What's he saying?" Fred whispered to Samantha.

"Beggars can't be choosers." She muttered back.

"If thou truthfully willst to tread our boards, I shall accept thine offer."

"Yes," Samantha whispered, "We're in."

"Great…" Fred muttered.

_**This took me forever….I don't know why. Going to Florida, won't be back for a week, no updates till I get back. Until then, read and review and remember,**_

**_McMuffinDragon is watching you!_**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Hey all, I don't have much to do, so time to update a story! On ward and up ward!_**

_**Star Crossed, Chapter Two**_

"_**Love sought is good, but given unsought is better."**_

_**-William Shakespeare**_

"Can you still take breath?" Asked Arthur as he tightened Samantha's corset a bit.

"Not really." She wheezed back.

"That is good then," He tied the strings down her back into a final knot. "Now we must fix thine wild mane." He took out the bands that held up her hair and it fell to her shoulders.

"I liked my hair the way it was." Samantha said brushing it out of her face.

"Mr. Berkeley has requested that I fix you to look proper." He combed her hair back, smoothed it out, and began to braid carefully.

X+

"Not a chance, there is no way I'm doing it." Fred stood in a defiant gesture.

"You have to," Cameron begged holding out a bundle of clothes to him. "If you don't, Mr. Berkeley will fire us both. I cannot afford to lose another job. I'd have to go back to the blacksmith's trade; I almost burnt down a forge last time, they won't take me back."

"Fine," Fred snatched the clothes and left Cameron.

X+

"You look lovely, miss Samantha." Arthur mumbled with pins in his mouth as he hemmed the red and black dress she now wore.

"Ah, fair lady," the director pushed aside the curtain door of the makeshift dressing room. "Here take thine script and commit it to thine soul. The first performance sneaks upon us like the growing shadows of the twilight."

"Um, alright," He handed her a stack of papers bound together, the top piece, there was no cover, said _Romeo and Juliet: A Play by William Shakespeare_. "Thank you, sir."

"Are you aware of the placement of thine fair haired friend?" he asked.

"Uh, no I haven't seen Fred."

"Arthur!" the director barked to the man as he finished hemming Samantha's dress.

"Yes Master Berkeley?"

"Do you know of the fair haired one's whereabouts?"

"I believe, sir, that he hast been put in the charge of Cameron. You should inquire with in him. He knows better than I."

"Very well," the older man muttered to himself, "Farewell!" he whipped the curtain to the side dramatically and vanished behind it.

"Arthur," Samantha said leafing through her script, "I never got to ask you, who do you play?"

"I portray the witty Mercutio, kinsman to the Prince."

"You get to give the Queen Mab monologue?" She closed the frail paper script and a puff of dust flew from between its pages. "That's one of my favorites."

"Oh, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes in shape no bigger than an agate-stone on the fore-finger of an alderman." He recited perfectly, "I must confess, I enjoy it much myself, though Mr. Berkeley's forceful ways of directing oft wear my patience thin as air."

"I know what you mean, he's kind of pushy."

"Samantha!" a voice came from behind the curtain, "I have a question for you." It was Fred.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Can I come in?"

"That'd better not really be your question." She moved to the curtain.

"No, I have another one too; can I come in though?" She pulled the curtain aside and tried not to laugh. "Shut up." He muttered as he came in. He wore a long sleeved shirt, stuffed to make him look older, with alternating light and dark blue vertical stripes and blue gray tights.

"If all be well," Arthur said as he collected the few things he had with him, "I must prepare myself."

"Thank you, Arthur." Samantha said as he stepped out, then she turned to Fred again, "I think it looks nice," she offered trying to make him feel better, which would have worked if she'd been able to keep a straight face while saying it.

"At least one of us doesn't look like a moron." He said surveying her. "That's really nice."

"I don't know, I think it's a bit much." She played with the lace fringe on her chest.

"Take thine places upon the stage, top of the show!" They heard the director shout from outside. "We shallt run this through or it shallt be the death of ye!" Fred looked at Samantha.

"Place for the top of the show." She translated.

X+

"Cut! Cut! Cut!" the director sighed, "Fair haired one," he began.

"I have a name, y'know." Fred snapped.

"Do you wish to bring the dark could of failure to hover upon this theatre?" he continued on without listening to Fred, "Because i'faith, that is the very deed thou hath accomplished!" It had been almost an hour, and they hadn't gotten past the first scene. Fred, with script in hand, and Cameron, who played Benvolio, stood on stage.

"I'm doing the best I can," he flipped through the pages of his script, "I don't understand any of this."

"Very well, begin again Cameron, at still live chaste."

Cameron nodded, "Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?"

Fred looked down at the script, "She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste; for beauty, staved with her severity, cuts beauty off from all posterity." He stopped for a second, "She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair, to merit bliss be making me despair." He stopped again, then started reading slower than before, "She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow do I live dead, that live to tell it now."

"Be ruled by me, forget to think of her." Cameron responded and the scene went on.

X+

"Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet, how stands your disposition to be married?" A man named Jacob spoke to Samantha in a rather convincing female voice, of course wearing a wig added to the illusion.

Samantha glanced quickly at the script in her lap, "It is an honor I dream not of." She spoke plainly.

"An honor! Were not I thine only nurse, I would say thou hadst sucked wisdom from thy teat." A younger man, Alan, played Juliet's nurse, was an off color individual on and off stage.

"Well think of marriage now." Jacob spoke again, "Younger than you here in Verona, ladies of esteem, are made already mothers. By my count I was your mother much upon these years that you are now a maid. Thus then in brief—the valiant Paris seeks you for his love."

X+

"Wait a second," Fred leafed through his script in the short time before both of them had to be on stage.

"What?" Samantha was reading feverishly, trying to memorize as much as she could.

"Ew, we have to kiss in this scene." Samantha looked up at him.

"Well, yeah, and?"

"I don't wanna kiss you." He furrowed his brow a bit.

"Why not? Is there something wrong with me?"

"Well, no, it's just that, you're my best friend's great granddaughter, and I don't think I should be kissing you, isn't that like breaking rules or something?"

"It's only breaking rules if we make something of it." She replied matter of factly, "If we just kiss and don't make anything of it, and don't tell anyone when we go back, then we didn't alter time or do anything wrong. Now let's go." She picked up her dress and hurried on stage. Fred pulled his mask over his face and followed.

X+

"Be quiet, or—More light, more light! For shame! I'll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts!" An older man of his late thirties played Lord Capulet.

"Patience perforce with willful choler meeting makes my flesh tremble in their different greetings. I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall, now seeming sweet, convert to bitterest gall." A young man of eighteen, Nathaniel, played the fiery Tybalt.

Fred's heart beat in his ears as he spoke, "If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle fine is this, my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with tender kiss." He took Samantha's hand and softly kissed it.

"Good pilgrim, you do wrong you hand too much, which mannerly devotion show in this; for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."

Fred didn't have the faintest clue as to what she had said, "Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?"

"Aye, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer." She took on of Fred's hands and put it against her own as though in prayer.

"Oh then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray. Grant thou, lest faith turn to despair."

"Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake."

"Then move not while me prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips by thine my sin is purged." Fred hesitated; Samantha cocked an eyebrow at him; the director cleared his throat loudly. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and kissed her square on the lips.

Samantha slowly felt her face grow bright red; the kiss left like an eternity. She prodded Fred in the side a bit and he ended the kiss, then she spoke, "Then have my lips the sin that they have took."

Fred seemed a bit out of breath as he spoke, "Sin from my lips? Oh, trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again." He stepped forward to kiss her again. She promptly stepped back.

"You kiss by the book."

Alan came over to them, "Madam, your mother craves a work with you." Samantha picked up her dress and crossed the stage.

"What is her mother?" Fred asked.

"Marry bachelor, how mother is the lady of the house, and a good lady, and a wise and virtuous. I nursed her daughter that you talked withal. I tell you, he that can lay hold of her shall have the chinks." He walked away and left Fred to talk to himself.

"Is she a Capulet? Oh, dear account! My life is my foe's debt." Cameron came up behind him and began ushering him out the door,

"Away, be gone. The sport is at the best."

"Aye, so I fear. The more is my unrest." He responded.

"Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone, we have a trifling foolish banquet toward." The man playing Lord Capulet stopped them, "Is it e'en so? Why then, I thank you all; I thank you, honest gentlemen. Good night. More torches here! Come on, then, let's to bed. Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late. I'll to my rest." Everyone began to exist slowly.

"Come hither, Nurse." Samantha stood on the other end of the stage; Alan approached her, "What is yond gentleman?" she pointed to one of the men as he left.

"The son and heir of old Tiberio."

"What is her that is now going out the door?"

"Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio."

"What's he that follows there, that would not dance?"

"I know not."

"Go ask his name. If he be married, my grave is like to be my wedding bed." Alan left for a second, and quickly returned.

"His name is Romeo, and a Montague, the only son of your great enemy.

"My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I must love a loathed enemy."

"Stop!" the director shouted, "Our time has run out, we shall return early to next morning, for now, farewell."

X+

"Knowst thou where thine cousin resides?" Arthur asked Fred and Samantha as everyone was leaving.

"Um," Samantha said, "that was sort of a lie; there is no cousin." She scratched the back of her neck and looked down.

"Then thou hast no place to rest?"

"Uh, no."

"Then come with me." He brought them to a dark dingy pub.

"Arthur! Howst thou been?" the bartender greeted them with a heavy Scottish accent as they entered.

"Life hath taken course, McKillen. I need a room, hath ye vacancy?"

"Always vacancy for ye, Arthur." He headed for the stairs, "Come this way" he gestured to Samantha and Fred.

"I shall see ye in the morn." Arthur said as he headed out the door.

The room was hardly first class. One small dirty bed, an old chest, a table with a couple chairs, and a window overlooking the street. McKillen lit an oil lamp which only made things worse by illuminating the obscene amount of dust that was everywhere.

"G'night t' ye." He put the lamp on the table and turned to leave.

"Wait, Mr. McKillen," Samantha stopped him.

"Aye, lass?"

"Do you have a blue book? It has silver squiggles, and lots of other designs on it."

"Hm," He thought, stroking his thick red beard, "Can't say tha' I do. I can no' read. Good luck t' ye findin' it though." He closed the door and they heard his thumping footsteps go down the hall and stairs.

"Do you want the bed or the floor?" Fred asked as he took off his shoes.

"Well," Samantha surveyed both, "The bed probably has fleas, and the floor," She stopped when she saw something brown and furry run under the bed, "has rats, which no doubt have fleas."

"So there's no way to avoid fleas?" Fred asked looking around.

"I don't think so."

"You can have the bed," he sighed yanking on of the blankets off the bed, "I'll just sleep on the table."

**_Sorry for boring you to death with Shakespearean junk, it had to be done. I want to get this story done before I have to give my English book, which has Romeo and Juliet in it, back to my English teacher because I don't know this whole play by heart. By my estimate, there are between five to six more chapters in this story, to make a total of seven to eight, a usual for me. _**

_**Read, Review, and Remember**_

_**McMuffinDragon is watching you!**_


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